Francis Olabode Johnson, President of Petroleum and Natural Gas Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN), has been accused of using his loyalists to repress popular wish within the association.
PENGASSAN sources told SaharaReporters that the last Zonal Delegates Congress (ZDC) of thAssociationon, which held in Asaba, Delta State, was blighted by Mr. Johnson’s desperate attempts to bend the process to his personal advantage.
At the ZDC, the PENGASSAN President, working through Comrade Azubuike and staff of the association’s National Secretariat loyal to him, moved to disqualify Comrade Onyefuru, who was vying for the position of Zonal Chairman, as a delegate.
However, sources explained, the plot failed. The failed plot was succeeded by another, which entailed desperate propaganda to present Comrade Onyefuru as ineligible to run for the office of Zonal Chairman. Very early in the morning of the day of the ZDC, SaharaReporters gathered, an emergency meeting of Comrade Onyefuru’s immediate constituency (Shell Petroleum) was called. The meeting had as its agenda the eligibility of Comrade Onyefuru. But it did not yield the expected outcome (ruling Comrade Onyefuru ineligible).
Being confronted with another round of failure, the PENGASSAN President’s men came up with another scheme by quickly changing the agenda of the private session to the election of a three-man election petition tribunal after the dissolution of the existing zonal executive. This, notably, was before the nomination of contestants.
According to sources, the belief of the President’s men was that if their camp lost the elections, they would call for cancellation even when the nomination process, voting, counting of votes, declaration of winners and swearing-in of newly elected officers were peacefully done and in full compliance with the PENGASSAN Constitution.
The election petition tribunal was established by the delegates before the commencement of the nomination process, a clear indication that it was validly done.
